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NewsWorld researchers call for global monitoring of bird fluMOSCOW, June 14 (Itar-Tass) - Members of Academies of Sciences of G8 countries, Brazil, China, India, and the South African Republic have called for setting up a system of global monitoring of the situation around bird flu virus, says a joint statement of the Academies that Itar-Tass received Wednesday. The document that leading researchers from the twelve countries endorsed at the end of a conference in Moscow urges the G8 leaders, due to get together at a summit St Petersburg in mid-July, to support existing international initiatives on monitoring and curbing of bird flu. It mentions, in part, initiatives of the World Health Organization, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and the World Bank. “Global monitoring is a basic instrument of control over emerging and zoonotic diseases, and the multi-element and uncoordinated system of control existing nowadays appears to be inadequate from the angle of view of outreach to different geographic regions,” the statement says. Researchers believe the global efforts in that area should engage national and international government organizations of all levels and various science and research agencies. “Also, the global community of scientists and researchers must mobilize its capability for developing new vaccines and medicines, as well as for designing new speedy methods of vaccine production,” the statement says. Assessments indicate that existing global production capacity makes it possible to produce only 300 million dozes of anti-flu vaccines a year. Researchers are confident that industrialized nations must help third world countries to control the spread of bird flu. “The international community must see to it that heightened attention to avian influenza does not pose competition to the rise of a global-scale stable infrastructure capable of counteracting a broad spectrum of infectious diseases, including AIDS and tuberculosis,” the statement says. “On the contrary, it must catalyze that rise.” Spokespeople for the press service of the Russian Academy of Sciences said the Presidents of Academies of the twelve countries was held April 19 and April 20 but the authorized statement appeared just a few days ago. It was released simultaneously in all the countries that took part in the conference, the spokespeople said. |
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